Dux Modular Shell 2.1 adds video wallpapers, Fedora Atomic installer support

Dux Labs has released Dux Modular Shell (DMS) 2.1, a major update to its customizable desktop shell for Linux Wayland compositors. The release adds video wallpaper support across multiple formats with intelligent playback pausing, four interface density settings from Spacious to Dense, and a new Classic UI style with traditional controls. The system monitor has been completely redesigned with process management, live performance graphs, SMART disk health data, and Markdown export capabilities.

The update also significantly broadens distribution support by adding Fedora Atomic variants including Silverblue, Kinoite, Bazzite, Bluefin, and Aurora to the installer, with rpm-ostree-aware package handling. Compositor integration changes include dropping legacy hyprland.conf support in favor of exclusive Lua configuration for Hyprland 0.55 or newer, plus preliminary Niri next-release feature support. Existing users must migrate to new Dux Labs repositories as older AvengeMedia and DankLinux sources are deprecated.

Compositor integration and system architecture changes

• Video wallpaper subsystem: MP4, WebM, MKV, MOV, M4V, and AVI formats supported with automatic playback suspension on screen lock, fullscreen application detection per-display, and display power-off events to reduce GPU/CPU utilization.
• Interface density engine: Four discrete layout tiers (Spacious, Comfortable, Compact, Dense) applied across shell surfaces, replacing fixed layouts with scalable UI metrics.
• System monitor rewrite: Reorganized into Processes, Performance, Disks, and System sections with expanded process controls, live graphs, SMART health data, and sanitized Markdown report export excluding PII.
• Hyprland configuration migration: Complete removal of hyprland.conf parser; DMS now requires Hyprland 0.55+ and consumes only Lua configuration files, breaking compatibility with older Hyprland releases.
• Fedora Atomic installer support: rpm-ostree and bootc image detection with command-generation workflow for package layering rather than direct filesystem mutation on immutable systems.

Why it matters

DMS 2.1's Fedora Atomic installer support signals growing recognition of immutable Linux distributions among third-party desktop environment vendors, potentially accelerating adoption of rpm-ostree-based workstations. The Hyprland Lua-only configuration requirement and version floor at 0.55 will force existing users to upgrade their compositor, reflecting the rapid evolution of Hyland's configuration format and the maintenance burden on downstream shells.